Her Name in the Sky

by Kelly Quindlen

“I think we all hide from God sometimes. We all have things we’re ashamed of. The essential thing is that you work through it.”

“You have to forgive yourself. You have to work past that harmful, murderous shame and start to love yourself. Love yourself the way God loves you. The way Baker loves you.”

The skin on her body. Skin that has withheld and has given, skin that has absorbed alcohol thrown in violence and tears wept in redemption. Cold skin. Hot skin. Clothed skin. Naked skin. And this neck—this neck that has leaned forward so she could pray over a chair, that has tilted back so she could see the heavens, that has turned to the side so she could hide from her demons, that has propelled her forward so she could kiss a girl. The legs that have carried her when she wanted to separate, that have parted when she wanted to unite. The arms that have shaken when she gripped her chair with terror, that have quivered when she touched another with courage. And her hands—the hands that have white-knuckled on railings when she needed to breathe, that have folded together in chapels when she needed to pray, that have entered another when she needed to live. When she needed to love. She sees herself, and she does not look away. Early Monday morning, after she drops Joanie off for her last week of school, Hannah drives to Luke’s mom’s house. Luke sits on the front porch steps, waiting for her, a glass of water in his hand. “Hey,” he says when she walks up to sit next to him. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?” He brings out a crate of oranges and places it on the step below their feet. They dig their thumbnails into the oranges and peel off the skin with lazy, early-morning movements, the undersides of their nails turning a yellow-orange color. “What time do you leave?” Hannah ...

“Orange you glad you told me now?”

he's so stupid I love him so much

“I saw y’all kissing,” he says.

SO IT WAS HIM

“It’s not your fault. All this stuff that happened—it’s too big to be anyone’s fault. Maybe there’s no fault at all. Maybe it’s just stuff that had to happen.”

“You’re brave, Han,” he says, looking meekly at her. “You’re braver and stronger than I’ve ever been.”

“But you know,” he says, his expression changing to the one she has seen him wear when he learns something new in class, “one of the reasons I find you so amazing is that you’ve always seemed to know who you are. So if you’re now learning more about who that is, then how can I be anything but happy for you?”

SHUT UP THAT'S SO SWEET

“We’ll be friends again, Han. I promise.” She looks at him and sees the young, earnest boy she met on the first day of P.E. class, the boy who recognized her from Geography and asked her if she wanted to be stretch partners. “I’m holding you to that,” Hannah says. Wally smiles. “You got it.”

“I’m going to wait,” she says. “I’m going to wait until she’s ready.” “What if she’s never ready?” Hannah guides the car onto their driveway. She thinks about how she has waited for Baker all week, how she’s thought about Baker’s broken rib and the cuts on her hairline and the bruises on her skin. How she’s kept her phone in her hand like a talisman. How she’s looked out the window with the sound of every car that’s driven by. “I’ll just keep waiting,” she says.

I felt like I was trapped by these feelings I didn’t want to have, and I didn’t want to deal with what it meant, and what people would say, and how I would negotiate with my faith…and I resented you for finding your way into my heart like you did. I was scared of you. Being around you, it was like—you were everything I wasn’t supposed to want. You’re—no one told me about you. When I was growing up, it was always, ‘One day, when you meet a nice boy,’ or, ‘When you have a husband….’ No one ever told me that it might be different. That it would be okay to be different. So I just—I had this deep sense of shame about myself. About the way that I felt.”

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known.” “So are you.” “No,” Baker says, ducking her head. “But I’m going to try to be right now when I ask you for something.” “What?” Baker fidgets with her car keys. “Um. Can I—can I kiss you?”

And then, with a simple touch of her lips, Baker kisses Hannah beneath the lights of a street lamp and the leaves of an oak tree.

“You’re crying,” Baker says. Hannah raises a hand to her own cheek. She touches the tears and laughs in disbelief. “Yeah,” she says, her voice wet, “but I think it’s in a good way.”